Russian media watchdog restricts access to Instagram over hate speech

Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor restricted access to Instagram, a social networking platform, on Friday. The move comes after prosecutors opened a criminal case against Meta, the platform’s parent company. Prosecutors stated that the firm allows calls for violence against Russia on its platforms. 

“The Instagram social network distributes materials containing calls to commit violent acts against citizens of the Russian Federation, including military personnel,” Roskomnadzor said in a statement. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked heated debates all across social media, with several internet users condemning Moscow’s attacks.

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While Meta does not promote hate speech on its platforms, the social media giant temporarily relaxed its policies on hate speech, permitting certain anti-Russian content across its platforms. 

“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders’. We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

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 “We are issuing a spirit-of-the policy allowance to allow T1 violent speech that would otherwise be removed under Hate Speech policy when: (a) targeting Russian soldiers, EXCEPT prisoners of war, or (b) targeting Russians where it’s clear that the context is the Russian invasion of Ukraine (e.g., the content mentions the invasion, self-defence, etc.)” read an email by Meta.

This isn’t the first time that Russia has attempted to silence anti-Kremlin conversations by blocking access to social media platforms. Russia recently blocked access to Facebook for propagating misinformation.

“Since October 2020, 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook have been recorded,” the Russian regulator, Roskomnadzor, said in a statement earlier this week. “A decision was made to block access to the Facebook network in the Russian Federation,” the statement further added.